Cadence capsules

A game changer & a splurge

In December, I went wild and spent $143 on a bundle of 12 Cadence capsules, a DTC single-product brand which promises to change how you pack personal care products for travelling. How did I justify this extravagant gift to myself?

1. I hate not being able to bring my entire skincare routine with me wherever I go. I’ve always procrastinated on packing my beloved North Face toiletry kit until the very last minute because it’s too difficult for me to decide what products I’ll have to leave behind. Inevitably, I end up bringing a random assortment along with a smattering of sample products that I save specifically for travel use. This stresses me out a lot, but I never really knew of a viable alternative until now.

2. I’m travelling a LOT this year.

3. I was bored at home and these seemed like a really FUN thing to own.

All 12 capsules clicked together on a recent trip

I just finished my first trip with these pricey capsules—a four day trip to Park City for Sundance—and here’s my hot take—Cadence is actually pretty great:

1. I was able to pack my full routine. This made packing far less stressful & the trip more enjoyable because my skin remained happy and hydrated the whole time. The capsules’ small size & interlocking hexagonal shape (each only holds .56 oz of liquid) made it feasible to bring way more products than I could have otherwise in the 3 oz travel tubes I was using previously.

2. I could easily identify and group products. The capsules come with custom labels and are available in multiple colors: I chose blue for shower things, cream for face routine things, and yellow, black & green for supplements, shaving cream & toothpaste, respectively. I could quickly pull out only the shower items by storing them clicked together

3. They just worked really well—they are well made & click together with a satisfyingly powerful magnetic snap. They are also leak proof —the hexagonal shape of the capsule helped give me confidence that I had fully closed them after using their contents.

Despite those pros, Cadence capsules still feel like a V1 product to me. After using them in Park City and at the gym, I had a few gripes to note:

1. They would get too slippery when wet. Cadence’s smooth plastic made it hard to open and close the capsules in the shower. I ended up dropping them a few times, which brings me to the next issue…

2. The magnetic label tiles tended to fly off whenever I dropped one. Because the tiles form a small crevice in the cap, water accumulated during showers and it was hard to know when the caps would dry out completely. I’d love to see a version with labels printed directly onto the caps, which would eliminate both of these issues.

3. Liquid-y products, like toner and serum, were messy to use—you have to gently tilt the capsule into your palm, pour out just the right amount, then twist the cap back on. Remnant liquid got squeezed out by the cap’s leakproof seal, resulting in wasted product that then needed to be wiped clean. Smart folks at Cadence: if you’re reading this, I’d love to see a clever solution here!

4. Price—at $14 a pop individually, Cadence is simply too expensive for me to recommend to anyone other than the most diehard skincare obsessives and frequent travelers (hopefully there are some of you reading this!). To anyone else, these are simply going to feel like an excessive novelty.

Have you ever purchased these or know anyone who has? I don’t—so let me know in the comments!